Source Control and Evaluation of Newspaper Inaccuracies

San Jose State University SJSU ScholarWorks Faculty Publications Journalism and Mass Communications January 1982 Source Control and Evaluation of Newspaper Inaccuracies William A. Tillinghast San Jose State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/journ_masscomm_pub Part of the Journalism Studies Commons, and the Mass Communication Commons Recommended Citation William A. Tillinghast. "Source Control and Evaluation of Newspaper Inaccuracies" Newspaper Research Journal (1982): 13-23. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journalism and Mass Communications at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. by William A. Tillinghast Source Control and Evaluatio n of Newspaper Inaccuracies Even on factual matters, some determine the amount of error or its sources judge published informa relation to constraints on the news. tion in light of their version of what Tabulating errors hasevolved into ought to be. a 14-category news source classi fication of error—omissions, under Newspaper accuracy research emphasis, overemphasis, misquotes, typically focuses on sources, news faulty headlines, spellings, names, constraints or on the reporter's ages, other numbers, titles, address mental state, generally providing es, other locations, time and dates. only a cursory examination of the The six studies found that between errors that prompted the research. 40% and 60% of all straight news The purpose of this article is to articles are said by sources to contain extend the limited research on error one or more of these errors. classification by examining inaccur Although there is some dispute acies as they relate to the ability of about which errors fall into which the source to control the flow of of two groups,^ the accuracy re information and to source evalu search tends to examine the tradi ation of the published account. tional 14 errors according to whether A 1980 review of accuracy liter they are considered factual mistakes, ature' cited fewer than 40 examina which are termed objective errors, tions of accuracy in nearly half a or mistakes of judgment, which are century and most of them focused considered subjective errors. It has on reader selection of news or on also been suggested that the ob the writing processes of reporters. jective errors have been defined too About half examined constraints or narrowly.*^ relationships among editors, report ers and sources. Dr. Tiilinghast is associate professor oT journalism al San Jose State llni\ersity. The six principal studies which This study was part ot a research project tabulated source-perceived errors funded by the American Newspaper Publish in newspapers' did so primarily to ers Association. 13 A benefit of the objective-sub sides attempt to manage the news, jective classification is in suggesting one to put the best light on them that the former are errors because selves, the other to extract just the they are inconsistent with factual information they desire. Because of reality while subjective errors are the way beats are structured—the inaccurate because of external eval assigning of reporters to institutions uation. It is analagous to the dis where information is likely to be tinction between the denotation and found, such as federal, state and connotation of words, the first local governments—journalists complete within their definitions many times give the edge to the while the latter require confirmation sources in this tug of war. by the news source. Gans noted that, although the For example, Lawrence and Grey^ sources' power of access does not found that a reporter's playing the alone determine the news or the race of a new school official high in values in the news, the sources do the story was viewed by the source direct the reporter's attention and as an error of overemphasis, in that their values are implicit in the race appeared to exceed the quali information they provide. fications and circumstances of ac Or, as Sigal says,^ by adhering to quiring the position. these routine channels of informa Confirmation, or the lack of it, tion, journalists are leaving much of has also been found in such surveys the task of the selection of news to as the 1981 Los Angeles Times their sources. More than half of the survey of readers (which includes news items in Sigal's study of The sources) that found that when the Washington Post and The New press reports a story that a reader York Times came from such routine personally knows something about, channels which, he concludes, cen the reader often finds the story tralizes control over the disclosure inaccurate.^ of news. Since one-third of the items in Sigal's study were single- The importance of source eval source stories, the power of sources uation was further examined in a in these cases also results in the recent study which focused on source's ability to exclude contra reporter response to source claims dictory views. of error. In that study,^ reporters One result of source control is agreed with half of the source claims that single-source stories are con when factual material was consider sidered, by those sources, to be ed but with only five percent of the more accurate than articles which subjective error claims. The dispar utilize information from multiple ity indicates that much of what is sources. A study of source per said to be error may largely be ceptions found that 42% of the differences of opinion between sources single-source stories were said to and reporters. contain errors, significantly less than The relationship between sources the 52% of the multiple-source items and reporters has been described by which were said to contain mis Gans** as a tug of war in which both takes.'" 14 Purpose of Study in San Jose, Calif., that are part of The findings on multiple-source the Knight-Ridder organization. stories and the fact that reporters Almost all locally produced, and sources often disagree whether bylined news items published in the stories contain inaccuracies, com two papers" during a four-week bined with the tendency of sources period in 1980 were mailed to the to attempt to manage the news, primary source cited in each, along indicate that accuracy should be with a questionnaire on the article's examined within a framework of perceived accuracy. The 47 reporters source control and evaluation. who wrote the items then responded The ability of the source to by self-administered questionnaire influence what is published consti to source complaints of error. tutes source control while source Slightly more than 54% of the evaluation is the source's post-publi 496 articles were returned from both cation judgment of story accuracy. sources and reporters. This analysis The elements of source control of source relationship to error examined in this study are whether perception examines a subset of the the information was provided by 246 source-perceived errors reported the source or was about the source. in the 47% of the articles said to The elements of evaluation, all contain one or more mistakes. The aspects of source expectation, are subset is composed of those errors story completeness, story tone and for which the sources provided audience reactions. specific comment on both the error This study separates source-per and its correction, and to which the ceived errors into two groups. The reporter had some response. first are the source claims of in accuracies which are disputed by Findings reporters. The second are those The expectation of news sources which sources and reporters agree as to what will be published can are mistakes. Although both groups create conditions in which the are perceived errors by sources who sources are likely to perceive that evaluate them as inaccurate, they there are errors in news stories. So are examined separately to deter can some reporter techniques for mine whether source control affects gathering information. However, reporter agreement. the reporters who wrote the stories The two major research questions generally do not agree that these are examined in this study are: When mistakes. They are much more do sources claim information is willing to concede they made errors wrong, and when are they likely to in instances where the source had be right? control over the information. Failure to meet source expecta Methodology tions results in many source eval This study of what news sources uations of information as wrong perceive as news errors is based on because the source was dissatisfied stories published in the morning with the results in one of three ways. San Jose Mercury and the afternoon Sources object to stories they view San Jose News, metropolitan dailies as: I) being incomplete, 2) not 15 TABLE l: Source-Perceived Objective Errors Reporter Agrees Following Information Was Published Information Source Correction About Provided Was Incorrect Or Comment Source By Source Ms. I hate that title! yes no Councilmen one is a woman yes no executive director vice president yes no building owner president of company yes no leasing building Tom li m yes yes Arim Amir yes yes Joanna Joanne yes yes Jiminez Jimenez yes yes $250,000 loss $2.5 million loss no yes a strike in 1945 it was in 1953 no yes O'Connel O'Connell no no Even, N.Y. Eden, N.Y. no no Reporter Maintains Following Published Information Was Correct chief negotiator spokesman yes no judge justice no no 21 firemen budgeted number not given no no first raise in 11 years in 15 years no no two shotguns sought only one found no no 318-vote victory 480-vote victory no no generating a positive image, or 3) errors in these six categories.

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